Comedian Finesse Mitchell to perform at the Comedy Club

Finesse Mitchell said landing a spot on Saturday Night Live was all about being in the right place at the right time.

He was walking past a comedy club when he heard an announcement that the show was looking for new talent.

As a stand-up comic, he had no experience in improv — but that didn't stop him from auditioning.

"With anything I feel I should go after, I just pretend I'm not me, and I'm just fearless about it. Usually it's me turning into a character to represent me, going out and finding the right information and the right person to talk to," says Mitchell during a telephone interview from his Los Angeles home. He was a cast member on SNL 2003 - 2006.

The comedian — who will bring his stand-up to The Comedy Club Thursday through Sunday — first developed a taste for comedy as a member of Kappa Alpha Psi Fraternity Inc. at The University of Miami. (He also played football for the Miami Hurricanes.)

It was Mitchell's job in the fraternity to get young hopefuls to laugh during pledge week, when they were instructed to keep quiet.

From there, he worked up the confidence to attend his first open mike comedy night, where he received a standing ovation.

Encouraged by the response, Mitchell invited a large group of friends to watch him perform the following week.

"I bombed in front of everybody! Nobody wanted to stand next to me after it was over. Everybody was like, 'Yeah, we don't know him,' " says Mitchell with a laugh.

"I will never forget that. That's what got me hooked. It wasn't the standing ovation the first week — it was bombing the second week that made me even hungrier to prove that it would never happen again." .

While Mitchell learned a lot in Miami's comedy clubs, including how to appeal to a very diverse crowd, he said SNL was the ultimate comedy school, comparing it to the high school in the movie Fame.

"When you're around people like Tina Fey, Jimmy Fallon, Amy Poehler and Maya Rudolph, I think you just soak up everybody's energy and excitement, and then you also soak up everybody's talent. … It's just a weird collection of writers and (comedians), but those people grow up to be the show-runners," he says.

While he was on the show, Mitchell was approached by Essence magazine to offer dating advice to readers.

Other male celebrities were slated to appear in the article as well, but when editors read Mitchell's material, they scrapped that idea.

His relationship advice appeared in the next couple issues, and then editors asked to meet with the comedian.

"They took me to dinner, and they asked me a whole bunch of different relationship questions. It turns out they were kind of interviewing me to find out if I'd been coming up with these answers by myself! After the dinner, they asked me if I wanted my own column in Essence," he says.

The column and exposure lead to the release of his book on dating advice, Your Girlfriends Only Know So Much, in 2007.

Mitchell has been in a number of movies and TV shows since leaving SNL and recently finished filming Barely Lethal, which will star Jessica Alba and Samuel L. Jackson.

Regardless of what TV show or movie he may be in or what book or screenplay he may be writing, Mitchell will always come back to stand-up.

"I talk politics, relationships, sex, getting older, bad kids — I talk about everything," he said. "I like to think I will be in people's top five comics after they see me. … I like to brag on how great I am — before, during and after the show."

Shengulette is a Rochester-based freelance writer.

Finesse Mitchell

Where: The Comedy Club, 2235 Empire Blvd., Webster.

When: 7:30 p.m. on Thursday, June 5, and 7:30 p.m. and 10 p.m. on Friday, June 6 and Saturday, June 7.